Saleen322
Member
...The point is that if you want to be competitive than you need to practice. That goes for any pistol discipline. I see a lot of people in this thread with the attitude that "If I cant just pick up any gun and be competitive my first time out it isnt worth it to me"...
That is only true in part. When I lived in east-central PA, I shot in the William Penn Pistol league, a Bullseye league that has been going since the 1940s and is still in operation with like 10 teams. I would practice some but not every week and I was almost always on the Gold team (top 5 shooters on the team) my last 3 years living there but I did not start out like that--I got better shooting a difficult sport. Occasionally I would go to Lebanon to shoot PPC, never practiced, and would win Master class over half of the time I went. Bullseye was harder and it made me a better shooter in everything else. Think of trying to hit a nickel shooting with one hand @ nearly 17 yards and then shoot PPC where the X ring on a B-27 is big in comparison and you could use two hands on the gun. If I was going to an International match, I practiced hard because the events are hard. Even still I was lucky to be in the top 1/2 of shooters but it made me better. If you have any doubts, look at the 10 ring on a free pistol target and compare that to an 8" -0 on a IDPA target. Every good shooter I knew/know, shoot to improve themselves and much less to win matches. The best ones were striving to shoot personal bests and would much rather do that than win the match.
The purer, the harder the event; usually the fewer rules are required. No one will be called for air gunning in Free Pistol. I don't even know how you could cheat if you were so inclined as, for example, you can't fake a double shot into an Air Pistol target as you only shoot one shot per target, etc. All shooting sports are not created equal any more than all stick and ball sports are the same. You can play baseball or you can play croquet. One will make you work hard to improve and the other can provide an enjoyable afternoon with the spouse. It all comes down to what you want to achieve.